Sold: How to Sell Your Designs Online

There are many platforms to sell graphic designs, vector images and photographs, but this article mostly focuses on how to sell industrial designs and other multidisciplinary design creations online. I share sites for selling 3D Models, Packaging Designs, Architecture Projects, Fonts, and Motion-Pictures online.The first platform I&#039;d like to mention is the BuySellDesign, with a tagline of Good Design is Good Business, the BuySellDesign provides designers an opportunity to not only sell existing projects but also future works, all types of designs are accepted, and unlike existing platforms such as the freelancer, BuySellDesign platform is invite-only, accepting only award winning high-profile designers as sellers, and only high-level companies as buyers, thus also ensuring a higher payoff for the designers.BuySellDesign interface is pretty straightforward, you can buy or sell design. However you will not be able to view any designs from the website without approval; this was made to protect designers&#039; unpublished works from being stolen or copied. BuySellDesign is integrated with designcreation.org so that each included design in the platform has a proof of creation document that could potentially be used in future for auto-protection.To be able to view designs, design portfolios and services, a company has to submit a request, requests can be submitted to get design quotes, to view or browse portfolios of existing designers or to contact designers for commissioning. The platform is more or less manually managed to ensure that designers information could only be accessible to the real buyers.To sell design services in the platform, one has to register, application is not so fast, you will need to provide a bunch of details ranging from your previous work, clientele to your capabilities and design specialties, however inclusion in the platform has many benefits, creating jobs and business leads to the member designers. Branded as the online marketplace to buy and sell creative designs and ideas, the Salone del Designer website offers award winning designs a possibility to sell their creations. This platform is managed by A&#039; Design Award and DesignMediators, which also helps designers to set-up sales price, terms and agreements.The platform is open for public view, as the designs presented here are those who have already been disseminated, however designers&#039; contact information is not visible to guests, and interested parties are required to register and get approved to see contact details, or alternatively contact the secretariat which manages the requests for communications if appropriate.Salone del Design platform lists designs based on categories, and is also a good source for inspiration, there are many categories, and you could find designs ranging from packaging to architecture, from engineering to social design projects. Clicking on a category opens a nice view of exhibited designs. The Design Mega Store is another platform where you could sell design products (i.e. if you already have it produced), Design Concepts, Art Works, Craft Items and Design Services. Selling your designs at design mega store is very straightforward, simply you register and have your design listed, there are no commission on your sales as the registration is paid. It is like a shopping mall of design where each user can open its own shop.The DM Design magazine lists some very good designs. To be included here you need to be a winner of A&#039; Design Award, however the site gets many hits, and creates a lot of business leads especially for realized products and limited edition pieces. DesignMediators helps designers and manufacturers by bringing them together, thus you could also sell your designs there by applying and having yourself included in their database. Usually high-level clients and jobs are be available. You receive updates and requests if a company request matches your profile.To sell Photos online.. This is perhaps the easiest thing, because there are literally thousands of sites for this. The most popular or nice ones are Corbis, iStockPhoto, Graphic Leftovers, BigStockPhoto and ShutterStock. Other places to sell your photography are Fotolia, Shutterfly, ShutterPoit, 123RF, Dreamstime, CanStockPhoto and DepositPhotos. I must say there are a lot of commissions in action, you can of course sell your photos through BuySellDesign and DesignMegaStore as well.Illustrations and artworks can be sold at VectorStock (Vectors only), 20x200, 1000 Markets, ArtFire, Artbuzz, Cafe Press (as part of products), Etsy (Direct Marketplace), imagekind, nuzart, RedBubble, Spreadshirt, Supermarket, Threadless, Thumbtack, Zalista and Zazzle, you will realize that more than half of these sites do not sell the work itself but you customize products such as t-shirts with your art, and sell it that way. To sell crafts, Etsy is the best choice.How to sell your architecture online, well there are thousands of real estate sites, but the only possible way to sell conceptual architecture designs is from BuySellDesign and DesignMegaStore options. If you require privacy BuySellDesign will be a better choice, if you want a shopping-window, DesignMegaStore is the way to go.Sell your video and motion-pictures online through stock image websites, which most of them also offering the sales of clips, however these usually limit you for 45 second clips etc, therefore if you want to sell your video which is slightly advanced such as a short feature, a documentary, you could do it over amazon, if you want to be able to sell its rights first try to have BuySellDesign find you a client.Selling fonts online is perhaps too easy, simply use MyFonts or Linotype. However that is the superficial side of the story, you could sign with a foundry or reseller, and alternatively go it alone over BuySellDesign or DesignMegaStore. Resellers such as FontShop, Fonts.com, MyFonts and Veer will help you reach more customers, while selling yourself makes sure you control who you sell and get the whole money instead of a pie.Selling ideas for industrial design? Do not even think of participating in design contests organized by contest platforms to collect ideas, they provide little to designers, i.e. only a few cents per design you submit, if you really value your industrial design ideas, sell it through BuySellDesign, or apply to international design awards to get coverage to sell your next design for big bucks. Especially do not join contests or competitions where you could see others works while the competition is ongoing, this schemes were developed so that others could steal your design (or to build upon it), if the contest do not behave in such manner (i.e. if no-one sees others designs while the competition is still open for submissions), perhaps it might be a good idea to join them, it can be a good practice and potential sale of the design if it wins. I would like to remind you that competitions organized by NGOs and Government aided ones such as regional, national or local competitions will compensate the most for your time, while international design awards could give you the push you would need to reach more clients.How to sell 3D files online? There are two types of marketplaces, one is model oriented i.e. you sell your models, the other is super high-tech places where you upload your 3d model, and they print it 3d and you got the sales revenues i.e. shapeways and sculpteo. To sell models, you should check turbosquid, the 3d studio, daz 3d, renderosity, 3d ocean, and 3d export. If you like you could also sell your models printed first at shapeways, and sell at DesignMegaStore at product section by also providing a packaging and a manual thus adding further value to the naked 3d object.Selling your packaging designs online: my suggestion is to use BuySellDesign or DesignMegaStore platform (at DesignMegaStore, you could create a standard service for packaging design, and sell it as a turn-key solution with a fixed price for different product categories), alternatively you could apply to awards and get publicity; good packaging designs are always on demand and getting publicity can help you sell your next projects at higher prices.Finally sell your websites, templates and website-design-services through your own platform. Because if you are already good at it, why bother uploading your project files to other vendors.. But of course if you want to rich a higher-level clientele, you can always use BuySellDesign or DesignMegaStore too or participate in design awards and website competitions. Exerpt:There are many platforms to sell graphic designs, vector images and photographs, but this article mostly focuses on how to sell industrial designs and other multidisciplinary design creations online. I share sites for selling 3D Models, Packaging Designs, Architecture Projects, Fonts, and Motion-Pictures online.The first platform I&#039;d like to mention is the BuySellDesign, with a tagline of Good Design is Good Business, the BuySellDesign provides designers an opportunity to not only sell exis..